Monday, April 16, 2012

Last Friday we had what is called a pre-pitch here at the school. We had a chance to pitch ideas for our bachelor films and try out pitching before the actual pitch which is sometime in June. My pitches could have gone better, there's no denying that, but it was great fun and I'm glad I went and did it.

I now have the opportunity to work on my ideas, based on the feedback I received at the pre-pitch or ditch the ideas and come up with brand new ones. Still mulling it over.

Anyway, thought I'd show some pitch material here. The first pitch was Bunto, a story I've had in the back of my head since the first year. It stars a giant childlike forest spirit and a girl made of mist. The major problem I have with this one is that the relationship between the two needs work for the climax to grab the audience. Anyway, art:

My second pitch was basically a kung fu western. It was called 'The Dumpling'. A lone warrior (kind of a samurai) with a delicious dumpling head finds himself surrounded in a starving backwater town. There would be plenty of action and cool shots. This idea seemed to engage my classmates more than the first, sparking their imaginations. The problem with it is that it could easily just be a halfminute joke which isn't really bachelor film material. So unless I find some way to give it a deeper meaning and story, this could get ditched (for the bachelor pitch, anyway).

Long overdue update here. Right after the Christmas holiday we started working in pairs of one animator and one CG artist to make a 5 second quadruped shot. We worked together on the initial design after which the CG artist tightened up any loose ends and took it into 3D. i had the pleasure of working with the very talented Frederik Storm.

The creature we ended up with is called the Royal Boose, a strange bird/moose hybrid. Here's the final shot, uploaded by Frederik:

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Man, I'm getting terrible at updating. Here are my assignments since last time.

For this one we had to come up with a character, complete with backstory and everything. My guy is an old prospector, who thinks everyone is after his gold.

Here, my guy is an eager private investigator's assistant running from the mob.

This was my midway exam. Guy sneaks in, sees something out of the corner of his eye, is startled, and runs off.

And this last thing is a collaboration between the animators and the CG artists. It's a trailer for a different take on the movie 'Citizen Kane' - a very different take :D I animated the bit from when he yells Grossbutt to when they are about to go over the waterfall.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Last week's TAWmonkey. Now, I like to make a twist on the theme, but time travel is very dear to me so I thought I'd keep it semi-classic. My alternate idea was to do a caveman frozen in ice - a slow kind of time travel :D

Monday, October 3, 2011

After the floursack we went on to a human-like character rig, These assignments are from the last two weeks, two short exercises, weightshift and a swing (a wimpy one) and a longer performance centered around a bow. My guy is a waiter who's used to waiting on celebrities, but has to wait on a farmer and his pig who got rich finding truffles. He is annoyed and very unimpressed.

About Me

Hi, my name is Jonas B. Mikkelsen and I'm a character animator from Denmark. I'm into most anything creative, including (but not limited to) drawing, painting, writing and game making. Animation is a given.